November 26, 2015

Sally and I both want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. We will be spending the day with our families. 🙂

Waking Tide
At my knitters guild presentation, I talked about ripping things out when they did not work. “‘Tis better to rip and reknit now than regret later.” At least, that is my philosophy.

Boy, was that put to the test with this one!!

I have never been so disappointed in the amount of extra effort needed to make a pattern work.

First, I jumped onto the FREE Waking Tide bandwagon because I thought the sweater was cute (and still do). I bought the identical yarn and color for the same reason (though my color looks very little like the original). Once I decided to embark on the sweater, I bought the pattern so that I could have the final version with corrections and project photos. There were no changes that I could see and no photos. Every time I needed to look at a picture, I had to go into Ravelry.

I made several mods to the body of the sweater, which look very nice. One change was to add the sleeves after the yoke so I could make sure of the length. Another was to center the lace motifs, which I believe should have already been done.

I got to the yoke making a size 44 inch (17 lace repeats). I noticed that on most projects the yoke ruffled because there were too many sts. So, I decided to be smart and remove 2 YOs from the top of the lace pattern (34 sts decreased). I took out 2 additional sts so my stitch count would match the next size down. I thought I was brilliant.

It did not work! Still way too ruffley.

So, I ripped it out back to the armholes (!), and removed the 36 sts at the beg of the lace panel (which gave me 15 lace repeats instead of 17). I still removed the 2 YOs at the top of the lace work – another 30 sts decreased for a total of 66 sts removed. I also went down a needle size.

STILL NOT ENOUGH!!

So then I ripped back to the top of the lace panel and removed 60 sts this time (4 per lace repeat). I now had removed 96 sts from the yoke to maintain the size I was making. 96 sts.

I had to adjust the yoke decreases from that point of course, fudging as I went along. It now fits.

I have not finished the sleeves or blocked it yet, but removing a third of the sts to get the thing to work is beyond ridiculous, esp since the lower body fit perfectly. Add the fact that I did not substitute yarn and my gauge matched the pattern specifications, and it makes no sense!

November 20, 2015

Sally shared her cute sweater and now I’ll share what I started at the Knit with Company Retreat. I fell in love with Olga Buraya-Kefelian’s Suke-Suke Cowl for its striking textural stitch. I chose a multifaceted colorway in Malabrigo Rios. It is a rich mix of greens, eggplant purple and browns called Canbombe.

It was actually pretty boring to knit, which is why it took me so long to finish! The tuck rows took an hour each! My cowl did not block well at all. The edges ripple and it seems to accordion and look a little floppy. All that said, it really looks nice on and I received a lot of compliments. Rios is worsted weight, so if you have a couple of skeins of hand dyed worsted yarn (~400 yards’ worth) in a stunning color, this may really showcase it!!

November 13, 2015

At the Knitting with Company Retreat that Susan and I attended, we got to see and try on lots of knitted models. I fell in love with Leigh, designed by Julie Hoover. I bought the pattern and yarn and cast on immediately.

There was lots to love. Leigh is a simple but classic shape with little details that give it interest: decorative eyelets along the sleeves (which perform double duty as the sleeve increases), a split hem, and small tucks across the back neckline. I added a single crochet seam across the top of the sleeve.

As some of you may know, I’m a big fan of Shibui yarns. Leigh is knit out of two strands of Shibui Pebble held double. Pebble — a tweedy lace weight mix of recycled silk, merino, and cashmere — doesn’t look like all that in the skein. But it’s wonderful when it is knitted up, especially after being wet blocked. I LOVE the texture.

I chose a color named Hedge, a dark grayish green. Or is it a greenish gray? Almost impossible to decide. Either way, it’s a beautiful, subtle color that’s a perfect neutral. Sadly, and I do mean sadly, Shibui has just discontinued this color. Shibui is known for blending their yarns into various combinations or mixes in their proprietary patterns and most of their colors are available across multiple yarns. Hedge, as far as I can tell, was an orphan color. That may be why it was discontinued — no other yarns (e.g., Silk Cloud or Maai or Cima) to blend it with.

I’m glad I found it when I did. Buy it while supplies last. Trust me.

I’ve attached some photos. Both the color and sweater are difficult to photograph. However, I can tell already I will be wearing this one a lot. (The second photo, of the back neck, is probably the truest to the color.)

November 4, 2015

We knit and sometimes that knitting morphs into something fabulous. I just finished a scarf that is beyond amazing…Vintage Velvet using Touch Me Due yarn, color Frate, by Muench. (They also sell regular Touch Me, which does not have a tonal quality.)

Before Felting

After Felting

This short video shows what happens to the yarn once it is felted following the pattern instructions:

I bought the yarn from Jimmy Beans at half price — still expensive, but worth it!! It looks like they still have a pretty decent color selection. The pattern calls for 5 skeins, but I used 8 and got a scarf the stated size! If I was to do it again, I think I would go with 7 and stretch it out more during blocking.

And what happened to all the people who wanted to hear about the retreat? Not a single comment! 🙁

Response to Suzan who asked how I felted the scarf (did I follow the pattern):
I just followed the pattern instructions and washed it once in hot water (in the machine) – in a zipped lingerie bag. I dried it in the dryer for a while, but it was still really damp. It took forever to dry, so every morning and every evening I would pop it back into the dryer for 15 minutes or so. It FINALLY dried! At that point I fluffed it in the dryer one more time. I don’t know that any of that was necessary!